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Pesticide Tests Are Not for the Birds—or Any Animal

The Physicians Committee recently convinced the Environmental Protection Agency to spare hundreds of animals from being used and killed in cruel pesticide tests.

A test for the pesticide thiobencarb, a commercial-grade herbicide, would have killed 200-600 animals, including newborns. An immunotoxicity test for aldicarb, an insecticide used to kill roundworms, would have dosed at least 40 rats with the pesticide daily for 28 days without pain relief, after which the rats would have been killed. Physicians Committee toxicology experts Kristie Sullivan, M.P.H., and Aryenish Birdie also argued against the EPA’s request for a lethal-dose test on 50 songbirds for aldicarb.

See the new infographic that illustrates the procedures animals endure before dying in 33 common pesticides tests at PCRM.org/Pesticides.

EU Bans Marketing of Animal-Tested Cosmetics and Ingredients

Cosmetics companies can no longer sell animal-tested products in the EU as of March 11. Kristie Sullivan, M.P.H., the Physicians Committee’s director of regulatory testing issues, and Aryenish Birdie, the Physicians Committee’s regulatory testing policy coordinator, have spent years rallying support for the ban that will save the lives of countless rabbits, guinea pigs, mice, and rats who suffer and die each year for cosmetics testing.

Last year, the Physicians Committee delivered nearly 25,000 letters from EU residents and people around the world to the European Commission, calling on the EC to maintain its 2013 deadline for a ban on the marketing of cosmetic products tested on animals. Physicians Committee supporters Alicia Silverstone and True Blood’s Kristin Bauer also wrote letters calling for the ban.

This ban follows passage of Israel’s Jan. 1 law that no longer allows the import and marketing of cosmetics, toiletries, or detergents that have been tested on animals.

The Physicians Committee is now working with U.S. lawmakers and cosmetics manufacturers to help the United States join the EU and Israel. The Come Clean campaign asks cosmetics companies to reveal whether they perform skin irritation and corrosion tests on animals, so Physicians Committee scientists can help them transition to nonanimal test methods that are both cruelty-free and technologically advanced.